Short Story Writer

Short story writer Linda Lewis (aka Catherine Howard) earns a living writing mainly short stories for magazines including The People’s Friend. She gives talks, runs workshops, teaches at summer schools and works as a tutor for the Writers Bureau.
See www.akacatherinehoward.weebly.com for more details.

Saturday, 16 August 2014

Thanks to Swanwick, I have been 'persuaded' by friends to start blogging again.
As this old blog is cluttered with gloom and doom and tales of my past miseries, I am switching to another blog, so if you want to follow me, the address is
writingfictioniseasy.blogspot.co.uk
My first posts which will start today will be all about my time at Swanwick only a week behind. I look forward to reading your comments and getting back into the blogging swing.

Thursday, 10 October 2013

Writing this blog has been enormously
helpful to me. It’s kept me in touch with the world at times when I wanted to
crawl into a hole and die. Time and again, I’ve been struck by the kindness of
strangers. People’s comments and advice have been truly invaluable and I would
like to thank everyone who has sent me messages, left comments, or posted a
card. In a way this decision has been triggered by a comment left after yesterdays' post in which I was told, basically, to shut up and get back to work. That was good
advice, so thank you.

I started writing this blog in February 2011; a time when my mother, who
was suffering from dementia, was calling me, sometimes dozens of times a day. It’s
seen me through the very bad times connected with her care and the legal
profession and was there to keep me going when she died and the whole can of
worms erupted.

Since then, it’s kept me on the right track, again thanks to
the people out there, mostly people I’ve never met who’ve shown me that there
is hope and love and consideration and sympathy in the world at a time when I
couldn’t have seen that even if it had bitten me on the backside. It’s taken me a lot longer to get over my
mother’s death than I ever expected and I’m not completely there yet, but I’m
on the way. Now it’s time to clear the decks. Rather than writing thousands of
words for the Writers Bureau or this blog, I want to write thousands of words
of other stuff – not sure exactly what yet but it’s early days.

One thing I will be doing, asap, is updating my woefully neglected
web site (www.akacatherinehoward.weebly.com).
At the moment, it’s so out of date, it doesn’t even have details of my latest
writers guide – 100 GREAT FIRST LINES so if you’re interested in details, or
want to buy a copy, drop me a line at kinghenryfan@yahoo.co.uk
or send a cheque to Linda Lewis care of 71 Manston Gardens, Leeds, LS15 8HA. You can have a look at the ebook on Amazon
where it’s listed as 100 FIRST LINES THAT WORK

I can still be followed on twitter @writingiseasy .

Writing this last post is both exciting and scary. Cutting
myself off from the Writers Bureau was scary too but sometimes in life you have
to take a risk or suffer the consequences. Stuck to my office wall, I have these quotes from HEYFRANCIS.TUMBLER.COM

‘If you do not go after what you want, you’ll never have it.

If you do not ask, the answer will always be no.

If you do not step forward, you will always be in the same
place. ‘

Another poster reads – Inner peace begins the moment you
choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.

And finally, from Charlotte Joko Beck -

‘Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every
moment, that includes every mosquito, every red light, every traffic jam, every
obnoxious supervisor (or employee), every illness, every loss, every moment of
joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath.

Every moment is the guru.’

As far as I’m concerned that’s pretty much bang on and a
great advertisement for mindfulness.

I don’t know what my next steps will be, but what I do know
is this – I want things to be different. For that to happen, I have to make room in my
life for new people and new activities.

So that’s about it. The last post has sounded and it’s time
to, finally, call it a day.

Wednesday, 9 October 2013

I’m finding it very hard to focus at the moment. I could
name all kinds of reasons – a lingering head cold, Louis who keeps demanding my attention, but this goes deeper than that. I’m worried because
a man has shown an interest in me. How crazy is that? The problem is he’s
pretty awesome. I can almost feel his intellect and it scares me. I’ve always avoided
overly intelligent men, not because I can’t keep up with them, intellectually, because
I can, but because I’ve always had this huge feeling of unworthiness. When I
was young, I met all kinds of people – low lifes all the way through to
professional people. Which ones did I date/marry/etc? Well let’s just say NOT
the professionals.

I remember one time I went to Sandown racecourse with a
lovely man called Richard. He was an all-round nice man with a great job and a family
who were very well off. We hadgreat day, helped by the fact that I kept
backing winners, but did I see him again? Of course not. He was much too good
for me. Whatever would his parents have thought if they ever met me? I wore clothes that came from jumble sales. My father
worked for the Guinness brewery in London, cleaning tanks.

Now another intelligent man, with a great sense of humour
and who shares many of my interests is in the wings and it’s a struggle not to
scupper it before it’s even started. I’m
going to try not to do that. I feel as though this is a test of my mettle. A
way to see whether or not I’m ready to take some leaps of faith and start a new
life. After all, that’s why I’ve been clearing the decks.

I’ve often felt as though I’m actually two people. One of
them is a pain in the ***, always putting me down, pointing out all my imperfections
and all the things that can go wrong. The
other person has a hard time being heard. She wants to enjoy life, have fun.
She thinks she’s OK and that she doesn’t have to be perfect providing she has a
go, or does her best. I know which one of those two people I want to be but
that doesn’t make it any easier. I’ve been listening to the bitchy critical negative
voice for so long it’s going to take some serious will power to shut her up,
but I’m going to give it a go.

So, Woman’s Weekly, People’s Friend and Fiction Feast, how about buying some of my
stories? That might just motivate me to write some more, then, who knows what
might happen.

Tuesday, 8 October 2013

I went to see my homeopath yesterday and really enjoyed it.
That probably sounds weird, but the fact is she’s such an upbeat lovely person,
just talking to her, I felt better. She seems to think that this cold (yes, I
still have it) is a good sign – marks the changes to a new season, etc etc but I still wish it would hurry up and go.
My voice has dropped an octave which, as it’s already quite deep, isn’t exactly
feminine.

Regarding life in general, I feel as though I’m ready for a
new start. More than ready. I’ve just had a call from the Writers Bureau so I
can now officially reveal that I won’t be tutoring for them after the 31st
of this month. I’d sent a letter in a blue bag in September, giving notice but nothing
was said which seemed odd, so I sent another note. Apparently, the original letter somehow got
left inside the bag (!) so they’ve only just found out. Anyway, the lovely lady
who runs the bureau has just calledand
we had a nice chat. She understands why
I need to stop but better still she also
said that if I want to go back at any time, to let her know, so the door isn’t
closed, it’s still ajar.

I can’t tell you how hard it was to make the decision to
stop working for them.Having deadlines
and something I HAD to do has been such an enormous help to me while I was
down. It gave me something to focus on, in much the same was as looking after
the dogs. Now though I want some me time. The plan is to have a year in which I’m
not committedto anything so that I can
go where the wind takes me. At the end of that year I can then weigh up what it
is I want to do and where I want to be. If I then decide to become a recluse
with three rescue dogs, that’sfine, but
I don’t want that to be a default mode.

I probably shouldn’t say this, but honesty is, and always
will be, my ,mantra, but I recently started an email correspondence with a man.
It’s been absolutely wonderfulin that
it’s given me a huge confidence boost. I have no idea what will or won’t happen
but the very fact that there are possibilities is great

Louis leaves on Friday morning after which I’m going to Long
Eaton for a workshop on finding ideas. I’m hoping that some of the exercises
will lead to stores and that my mojo will be waiting for me, ready and eager
when I get home again. Of course, the gardeners are due on the Mondayso I’ll have to work round them.

The other thing that’s happened in the past couple of days
is a whole heap of rejections from Woman’s Weekly which tells me that the
stories I’ve written recently haven’t been up to scratch. I think I knew that
anyway but it’s still annoying.

I’ve always said that once I’m at 5 on the happiness scale
(1 very depressed to 10 very happy)then I can write well enough to sell. I
THINK I’m there now but I don’t have the energy or the time to take advantage.
OK that’s an excuse, but it’s not a bad
one; I DO still have a cold, plus as this is the last time Louis is here, when
he wants attention, I’m happy to give it to him (it’s very hard, no impossible,
to write when you have a very heavy dog’s head on your lap). I’m almost sure
that by the time I’m at Long Eaton, the words will flow. It’s the almost that’s
the worry. I REALLY need to start earning some proper money again, and soon. That
way I can enjoy spending it so if anyone knows who the god of mojos is, do let
me know.

Saturday, 5 October 2013

The sun is shining. The workshop for next Saturday is
planned, the handouts printed. I have no Writers Bureau work to do. Time to
think about what to enter for Leeds Writers Circle short story competition. I
haven’t been writing much new stuff lately. The stories I have attempted haven’t
worked, at least not to the standard I’m looking for. Obviously it would be
nice to write something new rather then enter a womag story (which is unlikely
to come anywhere) but I’m not sure I want to. While I have Louis here, I’d much
rather spend time with him. We’ve just had a play fight. Anyone watching who
didn’t know him would probably think I was in danger. His bark is fearsome, his
growl deep and dark, and his teeth…. I tried to take a photo to show them off
but this was the best I could do.

After our fight, I feel a bit battered. He’s one heavy dog
and he doesn’t play fair, but it’s a lot of fun, and he really seems to enjoy
it so it’s worth the odd bruise.He especially likes it when I put my hand in his mouth (!)

I’m hoping to finally get around to doing his portrait today,
in fact, I might have a go now. It’s been a long long long long time since I
did any art so the result is likely to be poor but then I don’t have to show
anyone do I?

Friday, 4 October 2013

For more than a week, I’ve been fighting a bad cold. It’s so
annoying how something so simple and trivial can cause so much annoyance. I
guess it will clear up, eventually, but right now, the end is definitely not in
sight. The weather’s miserable too which in a way is good as then I can’t be
tempted outside.

I’m loving having Louis here. He really is an absolute
darling. Of course, I end up with bruises on my bruises – he has no idea how
heavy he is – but that’s a small price to pay.

I have the feeling that I need to spend time clearing the
decks. I’m finding it hard. I had an email from Swanwick Writers Summer School
saying my courses had attracted excellent feedback and they’d like me to teach
the main short story course next year. I’d said on the feedback form that I
didn’t want to teach in 2014 so that I
could enjoy the School as a delegate rather than teacher. The email said they
appreciated that, but would I reconsider. The old me would have given in and
said yes. I said no. Not only that but I sent a two page reply detailing all
the things I feel they need to fix. I love Swanwick.Very much. But. They don’t pay tutors enough
and because times are hard, they’re cutting back – less well known speakers and
so on. I think this is a BAD idea. People expect writing holidays to be expensive
. They also expect to get their money’s worth. Anyway, I got a long reply
saying that all my points were being considered and offering more money. I’m
still going to say no. I’ve taught at NAWG for the past three years. When I go
there, I get the weekend free plus expenses and a decent fee. Now if Swanwick
could match that…

Thanks to this cold, I’m merely treading water workwise.
Basically all I’ve done is tweak a few stories that Woman’s Weekly rejected so
that I could send them elsewhere and kept on top of Writers Bureau work. I’ve
started sorting out the details of the workshop I’m running in Long Eaton on
the 12th of this month. It’s going to be about various ways of
finding ideas for stories, plus some pointers on how to make a story ‘work.’ My
plan is to do the exercises too, on the day. My mojo WILL come back soon. I
just have to keep tempting it to come out and play.

I see my homeopath again on Monday. I’m supposed to have
been keeping an eye on my progress but that’s not easy when you’re think with
cold. So how do I feel at the moment? Goodish. Frustrated, because I want to
get back to writing GOOD (i.e. saleable) stories and because I have very little
energy at the moment.

I’m also feeling cautiously optimistic. I’m going to
Wentworth with NAWG in November for a retreat with a few workshops thrown in
(see www.nawg.co.uk for details), Christmas is sorted (I’m off to Scarborough –
hurray!), plus Strictly’s on. I love that show. Even more, I love Strictly Takes
two with Zoe Ball. I record it every day so that I can watch it at my leisure.
If you don’t like Strictly, I feel sorry for you. It’s not about learning to
dance, it’s about learning to let go, have fun, express yourself. The changes
it brings about in people (Matt Dawson springs to mind) are amazing.

Next year at the moment is a blank slate. Apart from a
couple of workshop bookings, I have no plans whatsoever. That is both a scary
thought and an exciting one. With no dogs to board, no part time job to do, I’ll
be able to do what I want for once. I just hope I can take advantage of that.

About Me

I write for a living, have done since 2003. I have lost count of how many stories I have sold to women's magazines, but it's at least six hundred.
My main markets are Woman's Weekly Take a Break's Fiction Feast and the People's Friend. I also give talks, run workshops and teach. My first book for writers was published in 2012 and is called THE WRITER'S TREASURY OF IDEAS. I have also published several books designed to help writers to improve their craft and find ideas.
At the moment, I live in Leeds.
I'm divorced and even though I'm in my (early) sixties, I still believe that one day, I will find true love.
Cue the violins!